For now, I’ll let myself rest.
Come morning light, everything will change.
Chapter eight
Sawyer
The nurse came in several times during the night to check on Ty. Between her visits and the sounds of the hospital and my own need to ensure that he was okay, breathing evenly beside me, I barely slept.
Near dawn, I fall into a deeper sleep, and an hour or so later, as I’m blinking through the sunlight glowing around the edges of the blackout blind, I sense that we’re not alone.
Squinting, I scan the room, and when I find a set of sea glass green eyes just a few feet away, I startle, my pulse taking off at a sprint.
“Atty,” I breathe out. “Shit. You scared me.” I keep my voice low and I don’t move, ensuring that I don’t jostle Ty.
Atty’s sitting in a chair close to the bed, a glower firmly fixed on his face. Charged, angry energy pulses between us as his focus shifts from me to Ty and back again.
“What the fuck, Sawyer? You didn’t think to call me? Tell me where you were or that Ty was hurt?”
He scrapes a hand through his copper hair and shakes his head.
“How did you—”
“I saw videos, Sawy. The guys showed me when I got to morning skate.” Hurt and betrayal simmer in his eyes, just beneath the sheen of moisture that threatens to turn into tears.
“I had to watch videos of my best friend collapsing in your arms while you sobbed. He ended up here, and you came with him, obviously, yet I don’t have a single missed call or text from either of you. What the fuck happened?”
Shit.
In all the commotion, I hadn’t even thought of Atty.
I also hadn’t considered there’d be videos or even thought past getting through each second of the last several hours.
“I skipped practice. Rushed here. I figured they wouldn’t just let me waltz back here since we aren’t blood related. So when I asked for Ty’s room, I said I was his brother. You know what the nurse told me, Sawyer?”
He sits straighter, his hands on his knees, gripping so tightly his knuckles are white.
Silence blooms between us, the air thick with roiling tension.
I swallow down the bile burning my esophagus, willing the tears in my eyes to hold steady.
If I cry now, I won’t be able to stop.
Once I let myself feel any of it, there’s no way I can focus on anything else.
With a sigh, he finally gives up on waiting for me to reply.
“She told me I could head on back. She mentioned that my brother’swifewas already back here with him, though, so to be quiet, in case you were sleeping.”
I close my eyes, my heart sinking.
“His wife, Sawy. Hiswife?”
I open my mouth to try to explain but snap it shut as soon as the vitriol in my brother’s tone registers.
“At first, I figured you did what I did. Lied so you could stay by his side. Why you didn’t go for sister, I wasn’t sure. Maybe so you could make medical decisions about his care? That had to be it, right?”
He shakes his head again, dropping forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
